


a sea that's bluer than the tide

by doji_oji



Category: White Collar
Genre: Episode Remix, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Peter is a dork, always-a-girl!Neal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doji_oji/pseuds/doji_oji
Summary: Peter Burke is brushing the Dutchman’s dust from his suit, quietly fuming, when Diana tells him that Nell Caffrey chopped off all her long hair, slipped into a stolen guard’s uniform and walked right out of supermax.Wonderful. Perfect. Peter huffs and puffs and barely refrains from blowing the building down. What else could go wrong?Quite a lot of things, as it turns out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First WC fic, second fic evar. I'm on tumblr at [bhujerbaa](http://bhujerbaa.tumblr.com). I couldn't get the image of Nell out of my head. 
> 
> [Nell headcanon, for reference.](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ea/17/6d/ea176d6a3f08d8ef8bb6298dd1d1fee0.jpg)

**i.**

Peter Burke is brushing the Dutchman’s dust from his suit, quietly fuming, when Diana tells him that Nell Caffrey chopped off all her long hair, slipped into a stolen guard’s uniform and walked right out of supermax.

Wonderful. Perfect. Peter huffs and puffs and barely refrains from blowing the building down. What else could go wrong?

Quite a lot of things, as it turns out.

 

**ii.**

He finds Caffrey sitting on the floor of her old apartment, a bottle of wine in one hand, the fingers of the other tugging absently at the jagged ends of her hair. It used to come down to the small of her back, Peter remembers; now it just brushes her chin. She looks oddly young.

“She’s gone,” Caffrey says. “The bottle means goodbye.”

Artistic types, Peter thinks, baffled. What happened to using words?

“They’ll give you another four years for this,” he tells her, and gets a careful shrug. When the SWAT team barges in, all waving machine guns and excess testosterone, to manhandle her into handcuffs, Peter snaps, “Hey, go easy.”

“One week,” she calls as they lead her away, her blue eyes glittering like the sea. Peter looks at the security fibre she plucked from his suit and sighs.

 

**iii.**

“Oh, don’t tell me it’s Nell Caffrey,” Elizabeth says, smiling. “I’ve been competing with her for three years.”

“She’d be out today,” Peter replies. “There’s more to this than some lost love, some side angle she’s playing.”

“Is it so hard for you to believe that a woman would do that for someone she loves?” Elizabeth asks. Peter thinks back to Nell, sitting on the floor with her short hair sticking out like a bird’s nest around her face. He pictures her in her cell and wonders how long she weighed her beautiful hair against her lost love before taking the scissors to it. Elizabeth covers his hand. “Hon, I’d do it for you.”

Not long, Peter decides.

 

**iv.**

“Do I have to stay here?” Nell asks, eyes big and blue. Peter glances over his shoulder at the beardy, toothless old man behind him who’s eyeing Nell appreciatively, and has to admit it’s a little galling, the thought of her here alone, but there’s not a lot he can do. She’s Nell Caffrey, he tells himself firmly as he steps outside. If anyone can make it work, she can.

The next day, he comes back for her and finds nothing but a note in curly handwriting, signed _XOXO Nell_. Peter rolls his eyes and tries to pretend he isn’t relieved.

 

**(v.)**

“Women’s clothes?” the clerk asks, and unzips a garment bag to reveal a stunning blue vintage dress.

“Those are fantastic,” Nell tells the woman donating them, who smiles.

“They’re mine, but it’s been a long time since I’ve worn one.”

“Well,” Nell tells her, “you have wonderful taste in clothes. May I?” She holds a hand out to the clerk, who hands her the blue dress. “Thank you.”

“It was a gift from Sy,” the woman says. “Well, more of a payment, really. Taught him not to underestimate my bluff, though.”

“Sy?” Nell blinks at her. “Sy Devore? You played poker with Sy Devore?”

“I did.” The woman winks. “And I was good. Oh, it looks wonderful on you,” she adds, as Nell holds the dress up against herself. “Especially with your eyes. I’m so glad to see you appreciate these. I was hoping someone would. I’ve got a whole closet full of them at home.”

“A whole closet?” Nell asks brightly.

 

**vi.**

Watching Nell come down the stairs in her new dress, Peter feels a bit like a high schooler at prom in a crappy teen movie, and can’t quite help the way his mouth drops open. She’s had her hair cut properly at some point too, he notices, and it curls softly around her face. The whole effect is a little offset by the anklet clinging stubbornly to her leg, but Peter gets the feeling most people won’t be looking at her feet.

“You look… um. Yeah. Good,” he manages. It’s not his finest moment. “Nice.”

Somewhere in the house, June laughs.

 

**vii.**

Almost the instant they lock eyes, Diana and Nell start doing this bantery, not-quite-flirting routine, and Peter stands there uncomfortably and fights the urge to stare at his shoes.

“It’s harmless flirting,” Nell tells him afterwards, fingers skimming carefully over the front cover of the Snow White book in her hands. “It’s like a dance.”

Diana is an adult, and Peter would feel petty and gross telling her who she can and cannot date, but he can’t help but shudder mentally at the thought of her and Nell together. They’d either become the greatest crime-fighting duo who ever lived, or Diana would kill Nell and hide the body. Peter frankly isn’t sure which idea is more terrifying.

In the end, he settles for, “Yeah, well. Don’t corrupt my probie,” and stalks out of the room with all the dignity he can muster. Which, all things considered, isn’t much.

 

**viii.**

“Frankly, Peter, I’m surprised you have such an amazing wife,” Nell says, beaming innocently, as though she hasn’t just sent half the federal agents in New York into panic mode.

Elizabeth smiles at her and adds, “Well, Peter never told _me_ how beautiful you are,” and Nell does this bashful little laugh and pats Elizabeth’s hand and Peter realises they’re best friends already. Everything is terrible. But then Elizabeth looks at him and her smile softens knowingly, and Peter can’t find it in him to be too annoyed.

 

**(ix.)**

Nell looks over at Peter, then back at the priest. “My…” she pauses, long enough for it to seem meaningful, “ _friend_ … and I have been… very happy together. But then—” she hitches her breath in her throat, makes her bottom lip wobble a little—“I met his _wife_.”

The priest’s eyes widen in understanding. “I see.”

“And knowing that he’s married…” Nell brushes away a fake tear, careful not to smear her mascara too badly. “I just can’t bear the guilt, Father. I need to tell him. And he’s a very spiritual man. I know this is the right place.”

The priest looks sympathetic, but he still says, “This is the City of Churches, my child. We are closed.”

“But Father,” Nell breathes. “This is where they were _married_.” She bursts into tears. After that, it takes them less than five minutes to find what they need.

 

**x.**

Nell makes quite the sight, sitting pretty on Hagen’s oak desk in her nice dress, heels kicked off, a cigar in her mouth. She grins at him, and Peter grins back, but he can’t help asking, either, “Are you okay?”

Nell takes the cigar from her lips and rolls it between her fingers. “Never better.”

Peter nods, relieved. “Good. You know, you’re really bad at this ‘escape’ thing.”

 

**xi.**

Nell’s hair glints gold in the dawn light. When Peter hands her the ID, she laughs in delight.

“You’ll be here when I get back?” Peter asks, something almost like fondness curling lazily in his chest.

Nell looks up from the ID. “Where else am I going to go?” she asks him, and smiles, brighter than the sun.

 

 


End file.
